Wallace Spearmon, a 21-year-old American, became the third fastest man in history over 200 metres in winning at last night's Daegu International, a warm-up meeting to publicise South Korea's bid to host the 2011 world championships.

The Chicago-born athlete ran 19.65sec, which means that only his compatriots Michael Johnson, with 19.32, and Xavier Carter, 19.63, have gone faster.

"I was just very happy to break my own record," said Spearmon, whose previous personal best of 19.87 had been set at the IAAF World Cup in Athens only two weeks ago.

"The crowd was very involved here and it has been a great day. I am really starting to run fast."